Suspension Files: The Complete Buying Guide

Suspension files look simple, but the wrong choice — the wrong bar centres, the wrong base, or paper too thin for the paperwork it's carrying — is a false economy that shows up as torn files and jammed drawers within a few months. Ironstor stocks the full Railex range of suspension files, and this guide covers the four decisions worth getting right before you order: drawer or lateral, which size, which material, and which capacity.

Drawer or lateral: which suits your cabinet?

Drawer suspension files hang front-to-back on the runners inside a standard filing cabinet drawer, and are pulled out towards you to search through. Lateral suspension files hang side-to-side instead, running along rails fitted to a lateral filing cabinet, cupboard or open shelving bay, and are flicked through left to right — often the better choice where floor space is tight, since a lateral cabinet needs no drawer-pull clearance in front of it. Ironstor's Foolscap Drawer Suspension Files and A4 Drawer Suspension Files cover the drawer format, while the Orange Manilla and Heavy Duty Polypropylene ranges cover lateral filing.

Getting the size right: A4, Foolscap and A3

Suspension files are sized by their bar centres — the distance between the two hooks that rest on the cabinet's rails — rather than by paper size alone, so it's worth measuring the cabinet before ordering rather than assuming. As a quick reference across the Railex range:

• A4 — 330mm bar centres, the standard fitting for most modern UK filing cabinets.
• Foolscap — 390mm bar centres, common in older cabinets and larger office filing systems.
• A3 — 473mm bar centres, for oversized documents, plans and drawings, and built with two heavy-duty steel bars rather than one.

If in doubt, measure an existing file or the cabinet's rail length rather than going by the paper size you intend to store — a foolscap folder will happily hold A4 paper, but an A4 suspension file won't fit a foolscap cabinet's rails.

Manilla or polypropylene: which material?

Railex's 240gsm Orange Manilla range is the value option — a full-length magnifying tab for indexing, at a genuinely good price for everyday office use where files aren't being pulled in and out constantly. For anything getting heavier daily use, or carrying the biggest and heaviest bundles of paper, Railex's 500 micron polypropylene range is the step up — tough, translucent, and built to outlast manilla under repeated handling. For oversized A3 documents specifically, the Heavy Duty A3 Manilla file uses a heavier 400gsm board with steel suspension bars, since A3 paperwork is typically handled less often but needs to survive its own weight.

Choosing a base: how much can each file hold?

Capacity is set by the file's base, not just its overall size. A V15mm base gives a small amount of give for a modest bundle of papers; a flat 30mm base holds noticeably more before it starts to bow; and Railex's heavy duty polypropylene lateral range goes further still, up to a 50mm base, for departments that file in bulk rather than a page or two at a time. Buying too little capacity is the most common false economy here — it just means more files, more drawer space, and more time spent splitting one matter across two folders.

Completing the filing system

A suspension file is only the outer shell — most offices also need a way to label it and organise what's inside. Railex's Click Fit title tabs clip onto any file punched with a standard hole punch, and the matching blank insert refills print cleanly on any laser or inkjet printer. Inside the file, coloured Pocket Folders keep loose papers together without a fastener, while the Railex Polifile — a compressor-bar system built from ultra-strong Hytrel thermoplastic — is a genuine space-saving alternative to a ring binder or lever arch file for papers that need to stay firmly in order. And where documents don't need a suspension file at all — bulky, non-sequential papers pulled straight off open shelving rather than a cabinet drawer — Railex's Shelf Wallets are designed for exactly that, with the same click end tabs for quick indexing.

The right combination depends on the cabinet you're filling and how the files get used day to day. Browse the full range in Ironstor's Railex suspension filing collection, or talk to our team if you're not sure which bar centres, material or capacity fit your existing cabinets.